Cardigan Ruffle Scarf Thing

You know I love thrifting, right? So, of course, when I was pregnant, I took full advantage of thrift stores for maternity wear. Now, you’re probably not going to find great maternity jeans at the thrift store. In 17-ish months of pregnancy thrifting (no, not 18+, Big Boy was a preemie), I found one pair of really nice designer maternity jeans. And I’m pretty sure I heard a choir singing.

But, there are many other things you can thrift to get you through those what-on-earth-is-my-body-doing days. Aside from some decent maternity tops and dresses, I also found loose-fitting dresses, empire-waist tops, and larger sized cardigans from the regular women’s section (and even a few things in the men’s) to work really well. Layering maternity and non-maternity clothes always made me feel a little more put together and a little bit more like me.

So today’s project came from one of those thrifted non-maternity pieces. It was a long, VERY large gray cardigan vest with ruffles. I don’t have a photo of it before (I hastily chopped off the ruffles before tossing it into my don’t-need-these-maternity-clothes-any-longer pile. Yes, I could still wear it, but you Mamas know, there isn’t much you wore pregnant that you’d really enjoy wearing when you’re not. Am I right?) Mine was similar to this one I found on eBay, only with three layers of ruffles. I rocked it almost as well as this gal here. (Is this Rachel Bilson? I don’t really know. She came with the photo of the cardigan.)

Here are my ruffles all laid out on my worktable. (Yes, this table has been beaten and banged up, but it is well loved, and it has a good story – a post for another day….) I knew I wanted to use it for a scarf somehow.

It had a lovely little hook and eye closure for the cardigan that didn’t make sense for a scarf. Or WOULD it?? I removed it with my trusty seam ripper.

After I tried on the scarf, thinking it was the easiest project EVER, I realized that it would be awesome to have a little fastener on the ends to keep the scarf together in a nice cowl around my neck. “Ha-HAAA!” as Big Boy would say. I know just where to get one!

So I got out my needle and thread and reattached the hook and eye to the ends of the ruffles. (You can see in this photo that I left the edges raw where I chopped off the ruffles from the cardigan. The ruffles are sewn down to this part and won’t unravel, so the remaining section of cardigan could a little, but it won’t fall apart.)

The ruffles were extra long, so the scarf wraps comfortably around my neck three times. I fasten the ends together, and it stays put.